Champion of Light and Darkness
by Eternity And A Half
Summary: One-shot. Buried deep somewhere within the sword Frostmourne, the Death Knight Arthas' lost soul ponders over deeds long done... and some deeds yet to be done.


I'm still here, you know. I never really left. That... that creature that wears my body like a costume isn't me. No, I am truly Prince Arthas Terenas, And that creature whose side I now clatter against has stolen my body.  
  
I am Frostmourne now.   
  
I was consumed by my passions as I fought only to save my people from the disease. But instead of saving them, I doomed them. I should never have taken that cursed blade, that which has become my body. Bit by bit it consumed me, drank my essence until it had displaced my soul with its own power. Now Frostmourne controls my body's actions, dictates what comes out of my mouth and whose blood I spill.  
  
Do you see it now? I never wanted to harm a living soul. That isn't me, sitting atop that skeletal steed. I am the miniscule voice inside his mind, screaming endlessly for my freedom. I might as well plead with a wall though- I suspect he only allows me the ability to speak with him for his own twisted pleasure. It's hard to find entertainment when one is surrounded by walking corpses.  
  
You have no concept of the guilt I felt when this sword that I have become plunged deep into my father's throat, spraying his blood upon his once hallowed throne. Although I did not myself perform these actions, I feel the guilt- for I let these deeds be done by surrendering to the temptation of the Blade.  
  
I still pray to the Light for forgiveness. I always took my strength and my power from that hallowed force. But now as I drown in a sea of darkness, I cannot find that strength and that faith. Everything is so terribly wrong. How could anything ever repair the damage I have done, even the holiest of holiest?  
  
I have killed Uther and slaughtered the Silver Hand. All for- what? An Orc imprisoned in a tomb of ice. I purged Lordaeron of the living to assert my absolute rule- or at least my body did. Every night, just before he drifts off to sleep, I thank the Light that Jaina escaped, and with her, the last of Humanity. As long as there is still that last fragment of resistance, there is still hope for my kind.  
  
I feel the pain of what I have done to Quel'Thalas as well- the ancient homeland of the Elves was destroyed at my word, all so that the necromancer I once killed- Kel'thuzad- could be resurrected. My defilement of the Sunwell has driven the Blood Elves away from the Light and into the hands of Kil'Jaeden. Ner'Zhul spoke through the sword to my body and informed him of this threat. And he- my body- had laughed. Their magical addiction had driven the Blood Elves into servitude with a force that would corrupt them forever. It would be only a matter of time until they began to become twisted and mutated by the dark energies they sought to wield as their own. Prince Kael'Thas had led his people, indeed- led them to their doom.   
  
The guilt stretches as well to Sylvanas Windrunner. She fought for her homeland as hard as I fought for my own. I would have given anything to stop what he made me do to her. I watched, aghast, as words I would never speak issued up from my throat, condemning her to an unlife of slavery to the old Orc. I rejoiced when she almost killed my body- it would have meant vengeance for her, freedom for me. But no- Kel'Thuzad, the necromancer reborn as a lich, denied both of us that great prize. I now feel a sort of kinship with the Elf. Both of us hunt something we can never attain.   
  
How many others have I destroyed? Impossible to say. Death after death after death, all in the Lich King's name. And all of it, leading up to this moment, as I stand at the foot of the Icecrown glacier, Anub'Arak, the Spider King, wheezing heavily next to me. With great effort I aim the jeweled eyes set into the hilt of my new body to stare at my old one. We have just seen a battle together. Evil against evil, darkness battling darkness. The darkness that festers inside my body now has won out.  
  
"We've done it Anub'Arak! The Frozen Throne is ours!" my mouth says.  
  
I know of his plan. I know what his master has instructed him to do. The awful darkness had invaded me as the Lich King used me as his mouthpiece to confer with his Death Knight. I know has plan. I will still fight that evil, fight and rage and scream against it until all the energy left in my soul is gone.  
  
I only hope the Light does not forsake me again. 


End file.
